


By Your Side

by CirrusGrey



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Martin returns, Teleportation, Tumblr Prompt, minor episode 126 spoilers, there's also daisy/basira if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 18:05:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17812844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CirrusGrey/pseuds/CirrusGrey
Summary: MINOR SPOILERS FOR 126!From the prompt: "Everyone in your world can teleport within 10 feet of the person they love the most."





	By Your Side

**Author's Note:**

> [Original prompt](https://writing-prompt-s.tumblr.com/post/180962297075/everyone-in-your-world-can-teleport-within-10-feet)
> 
> Most of this plot was laid down after 125, and I just sort of shoehorned in some details to fit with 126. So if it seems remarkably upbeat for the pain the fandom is in after the most recent episode... well, I was more cheery when I came up with the plot.

The first time Martin teleports to Jon's side, it's an accident. One minute Tim's laughing, telling him how Jon was enough of a clumsy idiot he managed to stab himself with a bread knife - "A _bread knife_ , Martin, honestly the man's hopeless..." - and the next he is in Jon's office, confused and disoriented, wondering what the hell happened.

Thankfully, the door is open and Jon is facing the other way, so Martin can pretend he entered in the normal manner when he asks, "Are you okay?"

Jon jumps and spins around, hastily closing a drawer that had been hanging open in his desk.

"Martin! Wh- yes I - what?"

"Are you okay? Tim said you stabbed yourself?"

"Oh." Jon straightens, clearing his throat. "Yes, I - the knife slipped when I was making lunch, and, well - I'm fine. Just needed a couple of stitches"

"Okay." He doesn't _look_ fine, disheveled and pale as he is, but it's no worse than usual. "Is there anything I can lend a hand with?"

"No. Thank you, Martin." His tone indicates a clear dismissal.

"Alright, just...call me if you need anything."

Back in the assistants' room, Tim raises an eyebrow at him.

"So... Jon, huh?"

"Don't, Tim. Please."

To his credit, Tim just nods and goes back to his work. Martin sits at his own desk, trying to ignore the shaking in his hands.

He's not an idiot. He knows what just happened. It was just unexpected.

Yes, his feelings for Jon have been developing for a while now, but... this is big. This is... love.

Teleporting is weird. Not everyone can do it - not everyone is lucky enough to have that strong of a love in their life, the kind that pulls you to them across miles of space when they need you - or when you need them. Most people have more than one focus. Parents, for example, can usually get to all their kids in the blink of an eye when they want to. Kids can find their parents. Friends, sometimes, form whole groups of people that can reach each other. The bonds aren't always two-way, and romance is no guarantee that one will form. It has to be love, true, deep love, down in the very bones of your soul.

Martin has only ever had one focus, and that is his mother.

He hadn't noticed his feelings for Jon getting so deep, but now that he has proof... it makes sense. Jon is - has become - the center of his world, and Martin can't deny he'd do anything for the man.

As to whether it's platonic or romantic love... well, the flush in Martin's cheeks when Jon looks at him, and the stutter in his heart when he gives that half-smile, are more than enough to answer that question.

And Jon will never feel the same, because Jon is a paranoid mess who didn't even like Martin back when he still trusted him.

Well. Now that Martin knows he _can_ teleport to Jon, he can make sure it doesn't happen again.

Jon never needs to know.

~~~~~

The last time Jon teleported, he had gotten a call from the hospital that his grandmother was dying, and had gone to pay his last respects.

He tries to focus on that feeling now, that blurring and shifting of the world, bending the very laws of space around himself out of a desperate need to be somewhere else - but it is no use. Not even when he thinks of Georgie, and the kindness she has shown in letting him stay with her while the world crumbles around him. She had been a focus for him, back when they were dating, but... apparently not anymore. Nothing when he thinks of Tim or Basira, either. Not even when he thinks of Martin, who has somehow become the one he is closest to at the Archives. He doesn't even bother to try Melanie or Daisy.

He sags where he sits, the ropes cutting into his shoulders. Does he simply not care about them enough? Or is it something in this place, something to do with mannequins and fear and restraints that go far beyond those that are visible? It is possible, he knows. Many statements feature this inability to get out, even by the supposedly foolproof method of love.

The days pass, Nicola and her minions come and go, and eventually Jon stops trying. Love will do him no good; when he finally gets free, it is on the whim of other fears.

(He teleports to Georgie's side as soon as he has finished what he needs to at the Archives, just to prove that he can. She teases him for pining over her for years, but there is genuine warmth in her eyes when he tells her she is his best friend. She leans in close to hug him, and it is only half in jest when she says that that probably means he should reexamine his life.)

~~~~~

Martin breaks his promise to himself, and teleports to Jon. It hardly matters anymore. Jon is in no state to see him appear, or to judge.

A nurse startles away from the bed when he appears in the hospital room, then relaxes. Teleporting is common in hospitals, where concern for loved ones and the desire to be near them run high.

"He's okay," the nurse says, smiling reassuringly at Martin. "I've never seen anything like it before, but his condition has been stable since he was brought in, and there doesn't seem to be a danger of it getting worse."

Once he has been told what that condition is and how unlikely it is that Jon will get any better, Martin will marvel at the nurse's ability to remain calm and collected through the explanation. At the moment, however, all he feels is overwhelming relief, and he sinks into a chair at Jon's bedside, exhausted with the emotional rollercoaster that has been his day.

~~~~~

It becomes almost routine as the weeks pass and the streets grow more dangerous. He is still exposed on the way back to the Institute, of course, but at least half the trip is safe.

Basira comes with him, once, holding onto his arm so that he can transport her as well.

She gives his shoulder a sympathetic squeeze as they stand over Jon's bed, and her eyes hold a deep understanding of his own grief.

"Have you tried..." he begins, but does not follow through. They don't talk about Daisy, as a rule. She has never been officially declared dead, but there has been no sign of her since the explosion at the wax museum.

Basira shakes her head. "I almost... no. No, I haven't. I know I won't... it'd make it too real, you know? To try, and not get through."

Martin thinks about what it would feel like, if he were to try to go to the hospital some day and not be able to. To know that it was because there was no one on the other side for him to reach for. He nods, and they stand silently in their separate griefs until a nurse comes in to tell them visiting hours are over.

~~~~~

Martin hangs up the phone and takes a deep breath, looking down at the still figure in the hospital bed.

"I'm sorry."

Sorry that I can't save you. Sorry that all my love has meant nothing. Sorry that I'm giving up on you.

But it has been almost three months, and there has been no change in Jon's condition. Martin has to face reality. Jon is not waking up. He is gone, and Martin has to move on.

Martin will never move on. He knows this, knows that he is leaving his heart behind in that cold hospital bed, but he cannot continue to ignore the outside world. There are things to be done, and he must do them, whatever the cost.

"Goodbye, Jon." He turns away. "Sleep well."

~~~~~

Jon is... tired. Tired of waiting, tired of watching, tired of being alone.

Melanie still won't talk to him, and Basira is spending most of her time locked away with her, filling a role halfway between guard and nurse. There has been no sign to tell them if her condition is improving with the bullet out of her leg, or if all they managed to do was stop it from getting worse.

He is tired of being too late.

Too late to save Sasha from the Not!them, too late to save Leitner from Elias, too late to save Tim or Daisy from the Unknowing. Too late to save Martin from the Lonely.

He doesn't want to have failed Melanie, too.

His thoughts drift back to Martin, as they have been doing frequently since he woke. Martin, who has been by his side since the beginning, trusting him even when he didn't trust himself. Martin, who put up with all his disparaging comments and paranoia, and somehow still came out the other side more concerned for Jon's safely than his own.

Who is actively avoiding him, working with the Lukases and isolating himself from all contact with the outside world.

Too late, too late. Six months too late.

He leans back in his chair, scrambling open one of the desk drawers. Then another, and another, until finally he finds the files he's looking for. They're shoved haphazardly into the drawer, another victim of the reorganization that took place while he was gone, but they haven't been thrown away. Jon finds he is immeasurably grateful for this.

On top of the pile is a picture from his first day working in the Archives. It's a selfie Tim took, with Martin pulled close on one side and a woman Jon knows now is not Sasha on the other. Tim had texted him the photo that first day on the job, captioned "The team's ready when you are, boss" with a thumbs up emoji.

Jon remembers scowling when he first received it, convinced Tim was making fun of his new position of authority, but he hadn't bothered to delete it. Later it had been the only group photo he could find for his... well. "Suspect list" still sounds harsh, but there's no point mincing words.

Under the photo are the piles of information he collected on his colleagues back when he suspected them of Gertrude's murder. He puts Tim's and Sasha's back in the drawer, not ready to face those particular failures, and opens the file on Martin.

Mostly it is just papers, lists of his suspicious activity and possible motivations for the murder. A copy of Martin's CV is stapled to the unfinished letter admitting he had lied on it, with various notations Jon had made about which parts were false and which were genuine qualifications. He is surprised, now, to see that he was actually quite generous about it, noting that the on-the-job experience Martin had was more than enough to make up for the false degree by that point.

There is a handwritten record of every time Martin went out of his way to make sure Jon was alright, from checking in to see if he wanted tea to dragging him along to grab lunch after he got stabbed. Jon has forgotten why this was supposed to be suspicious.

He runs his finger down the list, a strange mixture of warmth and sadness welling up inside him at the memories.

He had resented it at the time, of course. Martin had kept interrupting his work, and Jon hadn't wanted anyone fussing over him. He misses it now.

The memories wash over him as he closes his eyes. Martin's concerned face peering around his door to ask if he needs anything. A voice from the other room: "Just give him some time, Tim. He's been through a lot." His own increasingly confused attempts to figure out why Martin cared about him so much.

Well. Basira had answered that question pretty handily. Jon hadn't known how he felt about it at the time, listening to the tapes and learning Martin had feelings for him. Now...

Too late, too late.

It is a pain deep in his heart, deeper than he would have ever expected Martin to reach. He remembers Martin's smile, the special, relieved smile he saved for those occasions Jon had been gone from the Archives for more than a week and was just now letting them all know that he was still alive. He hadn't understood, at the time, what had prompted that smile. Hadn't thought it was an emotion he would ever know.

If Martin were to walk through the door right now, he thinks he might just find out.

The room blurs around him in a confused instant. The desk is gone, the chair is gone, and he is falling onto the floor in a dark, dusty room he doesn't recognize. He lands on his back, the air knocked from his lungs, and takes a moment to orient himself before sitting up.

Martin is across the room, staring at him with wide, startled eyes.

"Jon?"

"Martin." It's barely more than a whisper - Jon knows what just happened. "I think I love you."

Martin's lips part in surprise, and he is blurring too - from halfway across the room to Jon's side in an instant. "I love you too."

He holds out a hand to help Jon up, and Jon takes it. They stand there for a long moment, just looking at each other - then they are kissing, and Jon never quite works out who made the first move. It is a gentle kiss, but also desperate. Though their mouths move against each other with careful precision, Jon's hands clutch at Martin's shirt with frantic energy, holding him near so he cannot disappear again. Martin returns with the boundless enthusiasm of one who has waited for years for this moment, hands in Jon's hair, tugging him close.

"I've missed you," Jon says when the kiss breaks.

"You too." Martin shudders and pulls away slightly, a sudden movement as though he's just remembered something. "Wait, Jon. I- I'm sorry. I can't- can't do this. There are things I have to- I can't do this."

"Oh." Jon feels his heart break, just a little bit, and it's unfair because he's only just found out what makes it whole. He wants to protest, to tell Martin they can do whatever they want to, but... well, he has to let Martin make his own decisions. He sighs. "Okay. I trust you to do what's best. But whatever it is you're working on... be careful. For me."

"I will." Martin looks him directly in the eye, putting a solemn weight behind his words. "Don't worry, Jon. I'll come back to you."

"I'll wait for you."

Martin kisses him again - in apology, in gratitude, in promise. Then he steps back, and Jon lets him go.

He is halfway out the door before he remembers to ask.

"Martin?" He pauses. "Where am I?"

Martin lets out a huff of breath that might almost be laughter, in other circumstances. "Still in the Institute, in the attic. Head down the hall outside, first set of stairs on the left. It'll take you down to the library."

"Excellent."

Martin raises a hand, gives a little wave. It is a habitual, cheerful gesture that is unsuited to the somber expression on his face, but it makes Jon smile. "See you around, Jon."

"I'll keep an eye out."

And before either of them can process the fact that that may have been a genuine pun, he's gone.

~~~~~

Less than week later, Jon is startled from his research by the creak of a floorboard as Martin appears in his office, clutching a stack of papers.

"I'm back."

"This is sooner than I expected." Jon is unable to disguise the pleased note in his voice, or the relieved smile curling around his lips. Yes, he thinks, it is indeed a feeling he understands.

Martin takes a seat, tossing the papers on Jon's desk. From the thrill that runs up his spine at their proximity, he can tell they are statements. "Things have happened. A lot of things."

"What do you need me to do?"

"I need you to listen." He hands Jon a tape recorder. "There's a lot we need to talk about."

Jon leans forward, equal parts intrigued and concerned, and switches the recorder on.

"Statement of Martin Blackwood, recently reinstated Archival Assistant at the Magnus Institute, London, regarding his dealings with Peter Lukas. Statement begins..."


End file.
